On September 21, 2010, I attended a candidate’s forum hosted by the Pompano Beach Civic Association to listen to a friend running for the Florida State House. I showed up dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and upon entering the auditorium; I quickly realized that there was going to be more to the evening’s line up. I had then just learned that Allen West was going to be speaking, well it explained a lot, including the need to mentally prepare myself to brave the insanity and to sit through an evening in an auditorium with hate-filled fear-mongering homophobes and tea baggers.
While I can’t wait for this election season to end, until it’s over, I’m mustering up the energy to help pro-equality Congressman Ron Klein get re-elected to Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. His right-wing extremist challenger, who actually lives in Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s district and can not vote for himself, decided to try and carpetbag his way into the district. It’s been reported that West has been showered with Tea Party campaign funds from all over the country. The fight for this congressional district has the potential to serve as a barometer as to whether LGBTQI-Americans have any hopes to advance legislative efforts for equality in the next session of the United States Congress.
While Congressman Klein was in Washington, D.C. performing the job he was elected for, his opponent, disgraced Colonel Allen West, spoke to the civic association about his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. In my question [to West], I included Eric Alva’s name when I spoke about LGBT-men and women risking their lives, why should they not have the same right to serve? West’s response, as expected, just infuriated me and all I could think was “run fat boy, run.”
Below is a transcript of my question and West’s response:
Michael Rajner:
There are men and women risking their lives on a daily basis for this nation, just like you did. Why should they also not have the right to serve in our nation’s military?
Allen West:
Well unfortunately, they are serving, you just said that. But the thing I think you are looking at is, the military, the mission of the military is not to accommodate sexual behavior. Let me tell you something as a commander. I fined people for not having the proper haircut. I kicked people out because they couldn’t run fast. I kicked people out because they couldn’t do push-ups. I kicked people out because they were overweight. So the thing is, there was a compromise, that was reached during the Clinton administration and I stand by that compromise and I think that is the best thing for the mission of the United States military.
And so I appreciate any American that goes in and serves, but let me tell you something about me as a heterosexual in the military. I couldn’t even walk in my uniform holding my wife’s hand unless it was an official formal ceremony. So there are some rules and restrictions.
You know how many years you can go to jail in the military for committing adultery? Do we have that in the civilian world? You can go to a military prison for 18 months for committing adultery. The United States military is a different society then the society we have here and I think the most important thing that we need to be focusing on, we have been in Afghanistan for 9 years and we are still fighting major combat operations, that is where the focus should be so that we don’t have double amputees, be it heterosexual or gay, coming back to the United States of America.
Please help me re-elect one of our proequality champions in the United States Congress. Congressman Klein has stepped up to the plate when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV/AIDS-related issues. Now it’s time for the LGBTQIA-community to step up to the plate and make certain we send our pro-equality champions back to the Unites States Congress for our community to move forward.
Like you, I’m angry and I’m frustrated, but now is not the time for the pity party. Now is the time to channel all that anger into something constructive. Misdirected anger will only get us a Congress being strangled by the Tea Party right-wing extremists who would rather us be shunned from society to die unemployed, homeless and ill.
]]>U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips ordered an injunction on Tuesday ordering officials to no longer enforce “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the controversial policy concerning gays serving in the U.S. Military. The landmark ruling effectively puts an end to the 17- year old ban on gays serving in the military. The Federal Government now has 60 days to appeal her ruling but has not announced whether or not it will do so.
In a written statement, Judge Phillips ordered: “Defendants United States of America and the Secretary of Defense immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Act, or pursuant to 10 U.S.C. §654 or its implementing regulations, on or prior to the date of this Judgment.”
The original case was filed in 2004 by the Log Cabin Republican Club, the nation’s largest LGBT Republican organization. The Log Cabin filed their case on behalf of several decorated officers including Air Force Major Michael Almy. Almy had been deployed to Iraq three times and accused his commanding officer of attempting to force him to admit that he was a homosexual after another service member searched Almy’s private email without his permission. Almy fought his discharge for 16 months prior to agreeing to an honorable discharge.
In September, Judge Phillips said that banning homosexuals from the military did not affect military readiness and that the ban on gays serving in the military had a “direct and deleterious” effect on the military. She further concluded that DADT violated the 1st Amendment.
President Obama, while campaigning for President, said he was opposed to ban on gays openly serving in the military and would work to do away with the policy. While President, Obama has continued to contend that he opposes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” but has said that Congress, not the courts, should lift the ban. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the court ruling demonstrated that “time is running out on the policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ This is a policy that is going to end.”
However, also on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that abruptly ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would have enormous consequences and that Congress should decide the law but only after the Department of Defense completes its study on the matter due out by the end of this year. He said that dropping the ban requires careful preparation and a lot of training, or it would have enormous consequences for the troops.
]]>Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a man who has had two marriages for a combined less than three years in his life and has no legitimate children that he acknowledges, has come out with an interesting opinion on exactly those two subjects: marriage and child rearing.
After spending most of his political career fighting to deny the GLBT community the right to marry or adopt children, Crist — the now independent candidate for United States Senate — has changed his mind about GLBT rights.
While Crist’s current Senate website, www.charliecrist.com does not mention his recent change of heart, a position paper with the governor’s letterhead states some of his new positions regarding the toughest situations that are facing the GLBT community including adopting children, marriage rights, hospital visitation rights and the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
“I believe that the government should not make it harder for people to take care of their loved ones,” Crist wrote in his position paper. “I believe civil unions that provide the full range of legal protections should be available to gay couples. That includes access to a loved one in the hospital, inheritance rights, the fundamental things people need to take care of their families.”
The one-page paper articulates ten different policy points related to gay rights.
The positions that Crist now supports for GLBT individuals include:
Signs that the Crist campaign were thinking of targeting the GLBT vote came out this summer when the Governor mentioned a change of heart during a television appearance on CNN.
“I feel that marriage is a sacred institution, if you will. But I do believe in tolerance. I’m a ‘live and let live’ kind of guy, and while I feel that way about marriage, I think if partners want to have the opportunity to live together, I don’t have a problem with that. And I think that’s where most of America is. So I think that you know, you have to speak from the heart about these issues. They are very personal. They have a significant impact on an awful lot of people and the less the government is telling people what to do, the better off we’re all going to be. But when it comes to marriage, I think it is a sacred institution. I believe it is between a man and woman, but partners living together, I don’t have a problem with,” Crist said on TV, kind of playing both sides of the issue.
In 2008 Crist supported Amendment 2, a constitutional ban on gays and lesbians getting married in Florida that passed by less than 2 percent of the vote. Crist’s democratic opponent in the U.S. Senate Race, Kendrick Meek, immediately attacked his newfound position.
“Can anyone believe anything Charlie Crist says anymore?,” said Abe Dyk, Kendrick Meek’s campaign manager. “It’s obvious Charlie Crist is willing to say anything. The only thing Charlie Crist says today that you can believe tomorrow is that he wants to be elected. Kendrick, in contrast, has been a champion of LGBT rights. He co-sponsored multiple attempts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and has been a leader in calling for the repeal of Florida’s gay adoption ban. Unlike Charlie Crist, Kendrick stood against Florida’s gay marriage ban, Amendment 2.”
A spokeswoman for one prominent Florida gay rights group praised Crist’s position paper. “This is the furthest a sitting Florida governor has ever gone in publicly supporting [gay rights] issues,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida. “There’s no position he’s taken that a majority of Floridians and Americans don’t already support.”
His whole political career, Crist has fought rumors that he himself is a gay man who has been in the closet. These rumors were fueled on by allegations from former interns, but Crist has never publicly acknowledged that he has engaged in homosexual behavior. Crist and Meek are also running against the Republican Senate nominee Marco Rubio in what’s amounting to be the most exciting political race in the midterm elections.
Election Day is November 2. The three candidates have agreed to participate in a series of debates on national television.
]]>President Barack Obama is chipping away at his long list of promises to gay voters but has yet to win the enthusiastic backing of the reliably Democratic voting bloc.
The Obama White House has accomplished more than any other on gay rights, yet has drawn sharp criticism from an unexpected constituency: the same gay activists who backed the president’s election campaign. Instead of the sweeping change gays and lesbians had sought, a piece-by-piece approach has been the administration’s favored strategy, drawing neither serious fire from conservatives nor lavish praise from activists.
Last week the Labor Department announced that it would order businesses to extend unpaid leave for gay workers to care for newborns or loved ones.
This move, coming less than five months before November’s congressional elections, seems likely to incite conservatives and Republicans who stood in lockstep against the Obama administration’s earlier efforts to repeal a ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. It also appears likely to be popular with loyal Democrats and organized labor.
Nevertheless, some gay activists, who long ago stopped giving Obama the benefit of a doubt, will continue not to be satisfied.
Many Washington-based activists believe that gays need far more comprehensive and bolder legislation to achieve the goals these small, mostly symbolic and marginal piecemeal efforts attempt to achieve.
The little things to which the White House pays attention and claims, “to be making so much progress” does not translate into a sense of progress outside of Washington.
Mr. Obama had a long list of accomplishments to tout during last week’s Pride Day meetings with gay and lesbian organizations at the White House, but their reach is limited.
For instance, Obama signed a hate crimes bill into law, expanded benefits for partners of State Department employees and ended the ban on HIV-positive persons from visiting the United States. He referenced families with “two fathers” in his Father’s Day proclamation in June and devoted 38 words of his State of the Union address to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the ban on gays serving openly in the military. But there remains reason for frustration.
Obama’s campaign pledged to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” yet that goal remains years away. His Justice Department invoked incest in a legal brief defending the traditional definition of marriage, prompting some gay donors last year to boycott the Democratic National Committee. And just last week, a committee at his Health and Human Services Department recommended the nation retain its policy barring gay men from donating blood.
Some of Obama’s gay allies say the small-bore changes are the best activists can hope for despite Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House.
Perhaps the reason why these policy changes are important is because Gay Democrats do not have ironclad LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) majorities in either house of Congress. People wrongly assume that having large Democratic majorities in Congress means that gay-oriented legislative goals will be met. That’s not the case.
Gay constituents are hardly the only members of the Democratic bloc to come up disappointed with this White House . Environmental groups groan as a comprehensive climate bill has languished on the Hill. Organized labor saw its signature legislation, which would make it easier for workers to form unions, go nowhere without the White House’s backing. And women’s groups were in open revolt during the debate over the health care overhaul because of anti-abortion provisions.
It’s small consolation for gay rights activists.
A Gallup poll last month found 70 percent of American favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. That same poll, however, included a reminder: 53 percent opposed legalizing gay marriage. Among that opposition to same-sex marriage are three out of five Black and Hispanic voters — minority groups that gays would like to consider their natural allies, but a voting bloc that is decisively against gay marriage.
]]>By DMITRY RASHNITSOV
The very first president of the United States, George Washington, once said, “An army of asses led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by an ass.” Just like in Mr. Washington’s day, in today’s military, some of those asses may like to stare at some of the asses of their fellow fighters, but they are only allowed to do it in secret, thanks to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) military policy which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in any of the United States armed services.
This discriminatory policy is near coming to an end. On May 27, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Murphy amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 on a 234-194 vote that would repeal the relevant sections of the law 60 days after a study by the U.S. Department of Defense is completed and the U.S. Defense Secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. President certify that repeal would not harm military effectiveness. This study is expected to be completed on December 1, 2010.
On the same day the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the identical measure in a 16-12 vote to be included in the Defense Authorization Act. The amended defense bill passed the U.S. House on May 28, 2010, and the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on its version in the summer.
About 14,000 servicemembers have been discharged under the 17-year old policy and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars replacing discharged members. Estimates say that about 65,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers are currently on active military duty today with another 1 million gay and lesbian veterans throughout the U.S.
While many groups and individuals have spent the better part of a decade and a half fighting to end this policy, many do not know the background and history that has come with this struggle. The Florida Agenda takes some time to talk about the history of DADT and present the facts for repealing the bill, the arguments against repealing, and what you can do to get this legislation passed.
How we got to DADT
Getting back to General George Washington’s take on asses, in 1778 he helped push through the discharge of Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin from the Continental Army for sodomy, which at the time was a crime.
During World War II in the 1940’s the military began administering psychological screenings on all new recruits. At the time, being a homosexual was still considered a disease by the psychiatric community, so anyone who had engaged in any gay activity was not allowed in the army or automatically discharged for being crazy.
By 1982, the gay rights movement had been going strong for more than a decade and started to go after the U.S. military’s policies. At that time, the Department of Justice issued a statement saying, “that homosexuality was clearly incompatible with military service.”
When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, he planned on introducing a law that would overturn the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. Since the Congress was controlled by republicans, the bill had no chance of passing. Clinton agreed to a compromise in 1993, which later became known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass. “Don’t Ask” mandates that military or appointed officials will not ask about or require members to reveal their sexual orientation. “Don’t Tell” states that a member may be discharged if s/he says that s/he is homosexual or bisexual or makes a statement indicating that s/he has a tendency towards or intends to engage in homosexual activities. “Don’t Pursue” establishes what is minimally required for an investigation to be initiated. “Don’t Harass” was added to the policy later. It ensures that the military will not allow harassment or violence against servicemembers for any reason.
Over the years, the law was challenged in court five different times, but was never successful in being overturned by a judge. Hence how we got to where we are.
Reasons to repeal
As far back as 1993, studies were completed showing that having openly gay personnel in the military would do no harm
The National Defense Research Institute prepared a study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense published as Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessment. It concluded that “circumstances could exist under which the ban on homosexuals could be lifted with little or no adverse consequences for recruitment and retention if the policy were implemented with care, principally because many factors contribute to individual enlistment and re-enlistment decisions.”
“Today, as in 1993, the real question is not whether sexual minorities can be successfully integrated into the military,” said Dr. Gregory M. Herek, associate research psychologist at the University of California at Davis. “The social science data answered this question in the affirmative then, and do so even more clearly now. Rather, the issue is whether the United States is willing to repudiate its current practice of antigay discrimination and address the challenges associated with a new policy.”
The American Psychological Association has backed up that claim stating, “when openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, there has been no evidence of disruption or loss of mission effectiveness.”
In February 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a study saying that it cost the military nearly $200 million from 1994-2003 to enforce DADT and train new members to replace the ones that were discharged.
Beyond the scientific data, many gay and lesbian veterans groups have sprung up and started telling the stories of their members. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has started a campaign called stories from the front line where current military members write letters to President Obama telling how they are more than accepted by their fellow army, navy, marine or air force fighters for being who they are. A 2006 Zogby poll showed that 66% of respondents who had experience with gays in their unit said their presence had either no impact or a positive impact on their personal morale, while 64% said the same applied to overall unit morale.
Finally, in a February 2010 Quinnipiac University national poll showed that 57% of American voters favor gays serving openly and 66% said the current policy is discrimination. It was the first time that public opinion had crossed the halfway threshold, and polls continue to show that a majority of the public is in support of the repeal.
Reasons not to appeal DADT
As with any decision revolving around the LGBT community there are many groups and organizations fighting leave DADT in place. On June 4, 2010 Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services wrote a letter to congress urging them not to repeal the law.
Sacrificing the moral beliefs of individuals” in response to “merely political considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces at a time of war,” Broglio said. “The effect has the potential of being enormous and overwhelming and nothing should be changed until there is certainty that morale will not suffer.”
The Family Research Council said that “homosexuals in the military are about three times as likely to commit sexual assaults as heterosexuals are.”
“The most common type of gay attack is one in which the offender fondles or performs oral sex on a sleeping victim,” said Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the FRC, Peter Sprigg, who cited a 2009 study that 8.2% of sexual assaults in the military were perpetrated by gays. “In a number of these cases the victim was sleeping or intoxicated. Under those circumstances, their memory may be clouded and so the evidence may not be strong enough to stand up in a court-martial and actually prove guilt on a charge of forcible sodomy for example.”
The American Family Association recently suggested that, “Hitler was a homosexual, and that he recruited homosexual storm troopers because straight soldiers were simply not savage enough.”
Even some Military chiefs have come out against the repeal right now.
“My concern is that legislative changes at this point, regardless of the precise language used, may cause confusion on the status of the law in the Fleet and disrupt the review process itself by leading Sailors to question whether their input matters,” said Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations.
Finally, some Senators said they plan on standing in the way of the legislation.
“In all due respect, right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,’ said Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz). “We have to have an assessment on recruitment, on retention and all the other aspects of the impact on our military if we change the policy. In my view, and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that, the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.”
What can you do?
Since the House of Representatives has already approved the amendment with the repeal, now is the time to contact Florida’s Senators and make sure they follow suit. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) has stated that he will vote for a repeal of DADT. Sen. Nelson can be contacted at 202-224-5274 or http://billnelson.senate.gov. Sen. George LeMieux is not in favor of the current DADT repeal. He can be contacted at 954-760-4124 or http://lemieux.senate.gov.
Of the three candidates running for LeMieux’s seat, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Rep. Kendrick Meek have stated that they do support a DADT repeal, while Marco Rubio has not publically stated his position on the repeal.
]]>His journey, self-described as a march for those who serve in silence, to Washington D.C., will educate communities along the way about the discriminatory policy that limits the abilities of many Americans to serve their country honestly and honorably. Once in D.C., Burttschell will meet with key decision makers to make his plea for the repeal.
Passed in 1993, the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law allows gay, lesbian, and bisexual service personnel to serve in the armed forces as long as their sexual orientation is not publicly disclosed or discovered.
As of 2008, more than 13,000 men and women have been discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation, including more than 60 Arabic linguists and nearly 800 other service members in critical occupational fields.
Walker Burttschell is sponsored by Unity Coalition|Coalicion Unida, AMBIENTE Magazine, MYami Marketing, and local elected officials.
Burttschell graduated as Battalion Commander from his Bonifay, Florida’s high school’s Junior ROTC. After that, Walker enrolled in ROTC at the University of West Florida with the intention of graduating with a business degree and receiving his commission as an officer. After September 11th, however, due to overwhelming sense of patriotism, Walker dropped out of college to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2001 as an MP.
At his duty station, Walker witnessed a friend and fellow Marine endure discharge proceedings, and at the same time was himself ‘outed.’ As a discharge under DADT would result in his conservative family discovering his orientation, Walker became paranoid and depressed. Unfortunately, however, Walker’s ‘outing’ would eventually lead to his discharge. Walker now works for an international real estate developer where he has been a leader in sustainability and “green” initiatives for that industry, and is fluent in both English and Spanish.
For more information about the march to D.C. visit www.unitycoalition.com.—DR news Sexologist Volker to speak at day conference USMC Vet Walker Burttschell Marches from Virginia Beach to Washington D.C.
]]>Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) David Turley, United States Marine Corp veteran Walker Burttschell and HRC Field Fellow Jeffrey Kellog spoke to Kellog’s fraternity Pi Kappa Phi asking the group to write letters to Florida Senator Bill Nelson in support of the DADT policy repeal. More than 140 FIU students ended up writing letters.
“I was extremely nervous in anticipation of what their reaction would be because it was the first time I would be addressing them as an openly gay man,” Kellog said. “They couldn’t have been more excited to support the repeal and they couldn’t have been more supportive of me. The night was awesome and one that will be remembered.”
Kellog said that he was not sure the type of reaction he would get from the college Greek community.
“The perception many have of the Greek community is that fraternities and sororities are not open-minded and accepting of anything different; especially gays and lesbians,” Kellog said. “We could not have asked for a better reception. The first fraternity we spoke with was very interested and asked many questions about DADT. Following that we visited a sorority during which there was a great deal of interest in volunteering and taking action.”—FA
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